PT Adaro Energy, Indonesia's largest coal miner by market capitalization, has entered a binding agreement with Melbourne-based private equity firm EMR Capital to acquire Rio Tinto’s 80 percent stake in its remaining coal mine in Australia at an estimated transaction value of US$2.25 billion.

Adaro and EMR plan to jointly manage and operate Kestrel, an underground mine that produces coking coal in Queensland’s Bowen Basin region and the last coal mine that was operated by Rio Tinto, the world's second largest coal miner.

“The acquisition of the Kestrel mine is a significant milestone in Adaro’s strategic expansion of its portfolio of metallurgical coal, as well as one of its largest investments outside of Indonesia,” Adaro president director Garibaldi "Boy" Thohir said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Kestrel mine generated 4.25 million tons of hard coking coal and 843,000 tons of thermal coal last year, respectively providing 3.4 million tons and 674,000 tons as Rio Tinto’s production share.

In mid-2016, Adaro acquired IndoMet Coal, now Adaro MetCoal (AMC), from Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton. AMC holds mining concessions of 350,000 hectares in Kalimantan that contain more than 1.2 billion tons of mostly metallurgical coal. AMC produced around 900,000 tons of metallurgical coal in 2017.

This year, Adaro plans to allocate from $750 million to $900 million in capital expenditure, about $350 million of which will be used to develop AMC.

DBS Group Research analyst William Simadiputra projected earlier that higher production from AMC would be positive for Adaro’s consolidated profitability. (bbn)